


Welcome to Hotel Karasuno!

by HomeForImaginaryFriends



Series: 13 Days of HQ Halloween pt2 [11]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Angels & Demons, Alternate Universe - Creatures & Monsters, Alternate Universe - Magic, Blood, Demons, Gen, If that's your thing - Freeform, Magic, Necromancy, Past Abuse, Zombies, hint of kurodai, it's just a small bit that can easily be just them hating each other too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-26
Updated: 2018-10-26
Packaged: 2019-08-08 02:58:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16421081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HomeForImaginaryFriends/pseuds/HomeForImaginaryFriends
Summary: A place for creatures and monsters alike to rest safely and not have to worry about mobs with pitchforks and torches.  Have a request or need to order something?  The all-zombie crew of the hotel will take care of your every need.Alternatively, Hinata is a lonely necromancer who is tired of getting bullied, he is crying and bleeding in an unmarked cemetery and ends up raising the entirety of the Karasuno team.





	Welcome to Hotel Karasuno!

There’s a hotel hidden deep in the mountains of Japan's countryside, far from any path and buried in a thick, overgrown forest.  Humans who come near it get a deep sense of foreboding, slinking back away from the area where the light never quite reaches and invisible eyes watch their every move.  A primal instinct kicks in for mundane humans when they step too close to the area that houses the old, oddly medieval looking castle that looks as if one light wind might knock the whole thing over.

 

“Hello!  Welcome to Hotel Karasuno, how can I be of service?”  A chipper voice rings out in the large and lavish lobby.  Kenma turns towards the front desk, keeping his hood up though monsters and creatures alike wander about without fear of discovery.  Kenma lets Tetsurou handle the chipper front desk girl, she’s a tiny thing with little clips in her golden hair that look like twinkling stars in an every twisting galaxy.

 

“Hello sweetheart,” Kenma can tell Tetsurou is trying to be disarming but he towers over most people and especially over the little human-looking girl who blanches and leans back as Tetsurou flashes a sharp toothed smirk.  “Checking in for Nekoma, party of six.”

 

“O-of course!”  The girl chirps, fingers trembling as he grabs a large and dusty book to flip a couple pages.  Morisuke appears by Tetsurou’s side, jamming an elbow into the sensitive area below his ribs.

 

“Please forgive him, he’s a bit feral.”  Morisuke bit off the last word, shoving Tetsurou away from the front desk before removing his hood.  His light brown ears were pressed flat against his head in a clear sign of irritation.

 

“It’s n-no problem a-at all!”  The girl audibly swallows.

 

Kenma glances around the lobby, pitying the young girl and wondering who in their right mind would have put her on check-in duty.  Hotel Karasuno was a place of safety for monsters and while there were strict rules for those who stayed there, most tended to be even more terrifying than Tetsurou.  Even if the young receptionist was a witch, though Kenma felt no power from her, she was too close to a human to not be messed with by various guests.

 

“Do you need help Yachi?”  Even Kenma who had no interest in such things could tell that the glasses wearing woman who walked up behind the desk in a hotel uniform was beautiful.  Half her face was consumed by painful looking, barely healed burn marks while the other half remained pale and perfectly smooth.

 

“Oh Shimizu!”  The young girl, Yachi, looked relieved as she made space so the older woman could look through the book.

 

“Here it is.”  Shimizu wrote something down in the book with a long, feathered quill.  “Kinoshita, Ennoshita, Narita? Could you take the guests bags and show them to their rooms.”  Three men all around the same height and wearing the hotel uniform peeled away from the shadows to take the keys from Shimizu.  Tetsurou declined having his bag taken but Kenma gladly handed is own over.

 

The hotel was much the same as the last time Kenma had visited.  Time was meaningless to a Yokai like him who would continue to live until all nine of his lives were taken.  Considering he was still on his first one and he was several hundreds of years old in human terms, he thought it’d be a while yet.  Still, he thought it was probably close to a decade since he last visited which would mean the same family should still own the hotel.

 

“Are the Hinata’s still in house?”  Kenma asked, earning a surprised look from his companions.  Mostly Kenma kept to himself around strangers but one of the hotel bell boys, the one with the sleepy eyes, turned back with a small smile.

 

“The young miss just graduated high school so the masters took her on a trip abroad to celebrate.”  He explained as they made their way up a grand staircase and then another. Considering Nekoma were cat yokai they always asked for the highest rooms available.  Kenma did not appreciate the extra walking after the long trek to the hotel, but he did like the location of the rooms. “So the young master is looking after the hotel while they are away.”

 

“Shouyou is the acting owner?”  Kenma asked, causing surprise from the hotel workers.

 

“Yes he is, he’ll be in the salon later tonight.”  The tallest of the three said. “If you wish to speak to him.”

 

Kenma had met Hinata Shouyou the last time he stayed at the hotel.  Kenma was fond of his clan but sometimes they pressed in on him too much, especially with the younger yokai who couldn’t fully control themselves or their growing power yet.  He had needed a quiet retrieve and Nekomata had suggested Hotel Karasuno. The Hinata family line had only come into ownership of the hotel a hundred or so years prior, before that it was a long line of Ukai’s who took care of it.  Little Hinata Shouyou had only been a child when Kenma had seen him, easily excitable and full of untapped power and loud enthusiasm. Kenma had enjoyed his company quite a lot, had spent the majority of his time in his preferred small cat form, following the boy around on his various adventures through the hotel.  Guarding him from those guests who thought a human seeming boy would make a tasty snack.

 

The Hinata’s were powerful necromancers.  Most, human or monster, had an aversion to those who could control the dead.  Even in a society of nightmare creatures and those who lived on the edge of society, necromancers were not widely accepted.  Even so, the hotel was one of the few safe places for monsters and creatures and magic users alike so most feigned ignorance and the Hinata’s never flaunted their abilities.

 

Kenma distinctly remembered that during his last visit the staff had been made up of puppets.  Vaguely human looking dolls with porcelain faces and blank, unseeing eyes that obeyed orders and requests without feeling or emotion.

 

Tetsurou was given the first room and he walked past the sleepy eyed bellhop before stiffening, the pupils in his eyes becoming mere slits.  Nobuyuki and Morisuke were both being shown to their own rooms so they failed to notice Tetsurou’s reaction.

 

“Is the room to your liking?”  The plain looking man asked Tetsurou, who snapped out of whatever headspace he had been in and smiled, with sharp teeth, to the worker.

 

“Yes.”  Tetsurou said.  The sleepy eyed man then walked Kenma to his own room, using an ancient looking brass key to open the door, which despite it’s age swung open without a single squeak or groan.  The hotel employee put down Kenma’s bag before turning to Kenma to ask the same question he had of Tetsurou.

 

“Yes, thank you.”  Kenma said softly, moving past the man who was showing himself out but then Kenma caught a whiff of him and found himself stiffening, tensing and turning to watch him limp out and close the door quietly behind him.

 

Kenma’s sense of smell, like the rest of his clans, was heightened.  The bellhop might look perfectly human but he had the sickenly sweet scent of death and magic twisting around him, holding him together when all other senses and logic say he should be dead and long gone.

 

There were several different creatures who smelled of death, though each carried a different perfume from the others.  There were vampires, ghouls, wraiths, ghosts, or poltergeist. Many others Kenma had personally met and some he had only heard about in stories and rumors.  But the smell Kenma had breathed in was one he would never forget because it was the scent of a zombie.

 

Zombies were taboo even amongst monsters like himself.  Tetsurou was a couple hundred years older than Kenma and even he had a negative reaction to the scent of a zombie, though Kenma knew Tetsurou’s own past was as checkered as they come.  Yet there was something unsettling about zombies, the undead creatures that necromancers raised and controlled.

 

Kenma had met a zombie before, it must have been several decades ago, perhaps closer to a century.  The necromancer had been old and twisted, the dark magic around him had made Kenma want to cover his nose and stand several feet away from him.  The creature that dragged itself after the necromancer had probably been quite beautiful in life, but death robbed most creatures of beauty and grace.  All humanity had been stripped from it, two deep coals of burning hatred had burned in the empty eye sockets and Kenma had felt it’s desperate need to break free of the chains the  necromancer had wrapped around it. The zombie had only wanted to cause destruction, it was a creature that wished nothing else than to spread death around like a plague. The only thing keeping the creature controlled was the necromancer who had treated it like a belonging.

 

Tetsurou came into Kenma’s room without knocking and sniffed the air before his amber colored eyes looked around.

 

“I haven’t met the Hinata’s, how about we go say hello to the young owner?”  Tetsurou asked with a sharp toothed smile that did nothing to hide the viciousness Tetsurou usually kept tight under wraps.  Kenma felt a wave of protective instinct hit him but before he could hide that, Tetsurou was raising an eyebrow in question. “Kitten, it seems as if the entire staff has been replaced by zombies.  The boy you once knew might not be the man he is today.”

 

Kenma couldn’t imagine the shining little boy being anything but sweet and energetic, even as an adult.  He wasn’t used to being wrong about people. Once upon a time there were those who had warned him to stay away from Tetsurou, the bakeneko had been a scourge on humankind for centuries.  Yet now he was happily living amongst other yokai, he hadn’t eaten a single human in many years.

 

“They aren’t like the zombie I remember.”  Morisuke spoke up, he must have also smelled what they were.

 

“Is that what that smells was?”  Taketora asked, nose scrunching up as if remembering the smell.

 

“Yes, and if the entire staff are zombies than it is a rather remarkable feat that the owner can control all of them.”  Nobuyuki stated, which was true enough. Most necromancers spent the majority of their lifetime preparing to raise and control just one zombie, but it looked as if they had already met five.  Kenma had noticed that Yachi’s arm had been a different size and color the rest of her body, he had noted it but hadn’t thought much. It must not be her arm at all.

 

They walked to the salon together, Nobuyuki switching over to sign language to explain to Taketora and Shouhei, who had never met a zombie before, what they were supposed to be and how odd the behavior of the ones they had met.  There were old myths that told a necromancer could control any dead, no matter what they were but from what Kenma understood they could only control corpses. Whatever they pulled from the ether to pilot those undead was no more human than Kenma himself was.  Yet the zombies that worked at the hotel, or at least the ones they had met seemed to still have all or most of their humanity still intact. They exhibited their own personalities, they moved and talked differently from each other. Everything pointed at them not being zombies but Kenma’s nose had never been wrong before.

 

None of them were used to being that thrown off.  Kenma could tell it bothered the older yokai much more than it did the younger ones.  Nobuyuki, Morisuke, and Tetsurou had all travelled the world during their long lives. Each one had more than three tails, meaning they had lived and died three separate deaths.  It was notoriously hard to kill one of their kind with just one tail, let alone more. It meant they had all seen and experienced most of what the world had to offer and were not used to being on shaky ground.

 

A man wearing the uniform of the hotel staff came out a door, he looked perfectly human and handsome in a rather plain way but then his eyes landed on Tetsurou and he tensed.  Tetsurou had been talking to Morisuke, or more like trying to get a rise out of the shorter yokai, when he most likely felt someone's eyes on him. He turned in time to catch a glimpse of the hotel staff right before the man turned and strode back down the hall he had come from.

 

Tetsurou’s eyes widened, in the blink of an eye he was standing at the turn to the hall the man had disappeared down.  Kenma came up behind him but the hallway was empty, just more hotel rooms lining the walls.

 

“Kuro?”  Kenma asked cautiously, stopping Tetsurou from going down the hall and possibly searching other guests room.

 

“I thought-” Tetsurou took a deep breath, holding it in and most likely mentally going through the scents he had collected.  “Nevermind, it’s impossible.” Tetsurou shooed them all down the hall before they could question him further. They all knew when Tetsurou was hiding something and it was unlikely any of them, even Kenma, would get him to open up before he was ready.

 

The salon was practically the last place Kenma would ever willingly go.  It was the place to get food, for those who ate it, or drinks and socialize.  Kenma would much rather eat up in the safety of his room, but he wanted to see Shouyou and he couldn’t help but be curious as to what was going on with the hotel staff.  So he pulled his hood over his face a little more, hiding in the shadows it provided, and allowed his clan to shift until they were on all sides of him.

 

They sat on a recently vacated sofa, an old looking thing that looked like it was from India but it was well taken care of.  They had only sat a few moments before another hotel staff dodged around various hotel guests in the salon to stand by them. He looked rather young with a wealth of freckles on his face and his long dark hair pulled back into a half ponytail.  His face and what could be seen of his hands and neck looked like he was stitched back together after being cut into pieces.

 

“Hello, I hope you’re enjoying your stay at the hotel, may I start you off with any drinks?”  The boy delivered the line as if he had practiced it in the mirror every morning. They all ordered simple drinks.  “I’ll be right out with those, if you need anything else my name is Yamaguchi.” He bowed politely, only stuttering once on his own name before he turned and walked away.

 

“Pardon me, I’m so sorry.”  A man with hair more silver than gray apologized as the long and thin pole he was using to walk knocked into someone’s chair.  Kenma felt his own nose scrunch up at the sight of the group of angels, the yokai had purposefully sat as far away from them as they could.  The hotel had strict rules about violence on hotel grounds, but the angels always believed they were above rules.

 

Kenma thought there might be violence in the salon as the haughty angel that everyone knew as Oikawa Tooru turned with a sneer planted on his too beautiful face.  He looked up at the man wearing the same uniform as all the hotel staff, fitted black trousers, shiny black shoes, an orange vest over a black button down shirt. The staff was blind, the white wrap around his eyes making that clear to anyone.  Despite his silver hair, the rest of his body pointed to him being only in his thirties.

 

As with everything else, there were different kinds of angels.  The ones occupying the salon were guardians, basically warrior angels who killed first and asked questions later.  They were keeping human-like appearance now because their angelic forms tended to melt the skin off of people's faces.  There were four of them in the salon, which meant they could easily decimate the hotel with little to no effort put into it.

 

“Suga!”  Tooru’s face slipped into a beaming smile, hand reaching out to catch the staffs hand but he moved at the last moment, making way for another guest to walk behind him.

 

“Sir Oikawa, how are you this day?  Or is it night now?” That staffer, Suga, asked with a singular sweet smile that had all four of the angels leaning towards him as if he were the angelic creature and not them.

 

“Your drinks.”  Yamaguchi returned, placing the drinks on the low table and only managed to spill a few drops of a couple.  Kenma then heard a familiar voice and his head snapped up, looking in the direction of the salon doors.

 

Hinata Shouyou hadn’t changed much.  Sometimes Kenma was surprised how different humans grew up.  Shouyou looked like he would always be on the shorter side, though he was now only slightly smaller than Kenma but had filled out without looking too bulky for his slight frame.  His orange hair was as wild as ever, though it was kept a little shorter and it looked like he at least learned to run a comb through it. His eyes were still wide, his smile even wider.  He certainly didn’t look like someone who would raise a hoard of zombies.

 

“Shouyou.”  Kenma found himself calling out, hand raising halfway.  Shouyou zeroed in on him, head tilting before a blinding smile lit up his face and he was running over, nearly knocking right into Yamaguchi who held out a quick hand to catch him.

 

“Thanks ‘dashi!”  Shouyou said quickly.  “Kenma I almost didn’t recognize you.”  Shouyou motioned to his hood, which Kenma pushed back a little.

 

“Ah, so you’re the acting owner.”  Tetsurou said, a world of knowledge put into that simple sentence.  Shouyou looked over at Tetsurou, shifting slightly. The younger Shouyou that Kenma remembered would have shrunken back and hidden behind someone's legs at Tetsurou’s predatory smirk, but this older version only paused for a moment before his smile came back.  Not as blinding as before and a little hesitant, but professional all the same while not backing down.

 

“Yes, I’m sorry that was rude of me.  My name is Hinata Shouyou, I hope you enjoy your stay with us.  If there’s anything you need please don’t be afraid to ask.” Shouyou glanced at Kenma at the end of that sentence, his smile becoming a little warmer around the edges.  It was the wrong thing to say to a bunch of tricky yokai though.

 

“Actually there is one thing.”  Tetsurou practically purred but then his mouth fell open as a man appeared from behind Shouyou, hand coming out to rest on Shouyou’s shoulder.  Shouyou looked up in surprise before another bright smile crossed his face.

 

“Hello Sawamura!”  Shouyou greeted the older man cheerfully.  He was the worker they had seen in the hall who had disappeared, the one Tetsurou had nearly torn the hall apart looking for.

 

“Please don’t forget to circulate the room, many of the guests have come here specifically to talk to you.”  The one called Sawamura said, his voice deep and low, soothing even to Kenma who didn’t feel relaxed in the presence of strangers.  Shouyou shot Kenma a sad look before straightening up and nodding.

 

“Of course, thank you Sawamura.”  He bowed quickly before circulating around the room.  Tetsurou’s eyes stayed on Sawamura, the rest of the yokai at the table stayed silent as they watched the interaction with rapt attention.  That was cat yokai, lazy but they loved gossip.

 

Sawamura turned before pulling something out that he was hiding behind his back.  He placed a saucer with milk on it in front of Tetsurou before giving him a smile that was more a baring of teeth than anything else.  From his bent over angle Kenma could see a line that wrapped around the entire length of Sawamura’s thick neck, held together by stitches.

 

They all eyed the saucer of milk and then Sawamura’s less than friendly smile.  Kenma tried to see the deep hunger and hatred that had burned so brightly in the first zombie he had met, but though anger had harshened the lines of Sawamura’s face his brown orbs revealed nothing more.  Sawamura straightened.

 

“For you.”  Sawamura said to Tetsurou.  They all looked down at the milk as it began to smoke and then curdle, twisting in on itself as if it was alive and letting out violent bouts of hisses.  Kenma looked at his oldest friend and watched as a slow smirk overtook his features, a mischievous look of pure joy that only spelled trouble. Sawamura turned on his heel and strode away but Tetsurou was already up and striding after him.

 

“He’s going to get us kicked out, isn’t he?”  Morisuke asked no one in particular. “I thought he stayed away from humans?”  From everything Kenma knew, he thought the same way. Tetsurou thought very little of humankind in general but it hadn’t been a predator sighting his prey when Tetsurou looked at Sawamura, more like a kitten finding a playmate.

 

“Hey hey hey!”  Kenma flinched at that loud greeting as Tetsurou was cut off from chasing after Sawamura.

 

“Escape before he notices you, we’ll cover.”  Nobuyuki whispered to Kenma, who gave a short nod and let his magic fold over himself.  Kenma had many forms but his preferred one was the shape of a smallish calico colored cat.  He slipped underneath the sofa and out of the salon all together, escaping out a patio door into the cool night air.

 

“I don’t like the way that cat was looking at Daichi!”  Kenma laid flat on his stomach underneath a bush, peering out into the darkness to see the blind, silver haired man talking to a taller bald man.

 

“Perhaps you should help out Asahi in the kitchen.”  It was phrased like a suggestion but Kenma heard the underlying order in it.  The bald man deflated, head bowing and Suga rubbed the top with a smile. “Daichi is more than capable of handling himself, he could have avoided the yokai if he had wanted to but he purposefully antagonized him.”  Suga’s head tilted to the side before his head turned towards Kenma. It should have been impossible for the man to know Kenma was there at all, Kenma sensed no magic from him but yet he felt as if Suga knew.

 

“Suga?”  The bald headed man asked hesitantly.

 

“Go help Asahi, the owls showed up without reservations so I’m sure Yachi is panicking.  I’m going to go see if I can smooth things over for her.” They split ways, Suga using the long cane to feel his way but he stopped in front of the bush Kenma was hidden under.  “Hinata likes to sit in the middle of the rose maze after he talks to everyone in the salon.” Then Suga continued on, trailing behind the sweet smell of death behind him.

 

Kenma trotted on light paws to the rose maze.  It had been where he had met Shouyou for the first time.  The boy had gotten lost and he had been on the verge of tears when Kenma rubbed up against his legs, in his cat form of course.

 

It was easy for Kenma to find the middle of the maze.  It was beautifully kept as always, the ground soft beneath him and the smell of roses curling nicely around him as he hopped up onto one of the stone benches that surrounded the marble fountain.  During the day the carved figurine was of a beautiful woman with a flowing dress. Under the stars and moon and shifted into a heavily cloaked figure with a curved scimitar that a large crow that looked ready to burst into flight stood on.

 

Kenma dozed lightly, picking up the sound of footsteps well before they came near him.  They were heavier than he remembered but there was also a skipping quality about them that was all too familiar.  He turned to face Shouyou, who was greeting the fountain as if it were an alive thing before his head turned and he caught sight of Kenma.

 

“Kenma!”  Shouyou sat next to Kenma on the bench, close but not encroaching on Kenma’s space.  Kenma butted his head against Shouyou’s hand, allowing the other to pet him. “It’s been so long since I saw you.”  It had seemed recent to Kenma, but time passed by differently for yokai.

 

“I suppose it has.”  Kenma admitted. “Shouyou, can I ask about your staff?”  Shouyou’s hand stilled in Kenma’s fur and he thought for a moment his old friend would deny him.

 

“There’s a pamphlet in each room that explains it, but it’s really just the basics.”  Shouyou stretched out his legs. He wore the same uniform as the rest of the staff though he had a black jacket over his shirt and vest.  “Some panic when they realize what the staff is but they don’t need to. I don’t like the term zombie, but I guess that’s what they are?”

 

“They are yours?”  Kenma had an inkling that he was right about this and Shouyou’s nod only confirmed that.  “Perhaps starting from the beginning would help.” Shouyou frowned, not in an upset way but in a way that showed he was thinking before he nodded.

 

“Okay, so it actually happened a couple years after I had met you…”

  
  
  


_Shouyou curled up behind the crypt, trying to keep his sobbing silent because he could still hear the other teenagers running around looking for him.  His arm throbbed where he had been cut, he could feel the thick and warm blood soaking into his sweater and trailing down his face. The first time they had hit him he had been shocked but it had only gotten worse as the year dragged on._

 

_Shouyou was a necromancer and his parents had warned him that his powers would make others uncomfortable.  He had always whined what powers. He couldn’t make things float with his mind, he couldn’t breath fire or command the wind, he couldn’t shapeshift or blink from one place to another.  He could raise the dead but that took years of intense studying, rare ingredients, and the perfect conditions. Plus Shouyou had no interest in keeping a creature that had once been a human but now was a mindless thing that only wanted to hurt and bleed others._

 

_The Hinata’s had warned their enthusiastic son, tried to convince him to continue his education at home.  But Shouyou was convinced he could make friends. He might not have a cool power but he was friendly and he liked meeting new people._

 

_The kids at Shouyou’s new school didn’t care about any of that.  His parents had told him that people would be afraid of him but his peers only seemed to hate him.  At first it was just excluding him from everything, then it evolved into teasing and name calling, and a month ago it escalated into someone shoving him down onto the ground.  His palms had scraped against the hard ground but he was still convinced he could change their minds. Then the torture really started and only seemed to get worse everyday._

 

_They had never made him bleed that much but it seemed to cause a frenzy in them.  They wanted Shouyou gone and they weren’t afraid that everyone knew it. After all, humans were so easily hurt.  Shouyou had even heard them making plans about how Shouyou had ended up dead._

 

_There were a lot of unmarked graves in that cemetery, Shouyou could feel them all around him.  He heard them coming closer and he crawled on his hands and knees away, knowing he was leaving a trail of blood and tears in his wake but not knowing what else to do._

 

_Shouyou wished for one friend, just a single friend who was bigger and stronger than them.  Someone who was faster than everyone else, who wouldn’t cringe away from their harsh words. Someone who understood what he was going through, who didn’t care that he wasn’t that powerful or smart, that would make him better._

 

_Shouyou continued to crawl away, changing his mind.  He wanted someone mean looking who would scare them away but would care about him, who would take care of him._

 

_Someone every respected- no, feared._

 

_Someone big and terrifying, but kind._

 

_No, forget kindness, he wanted someone who was as nasty as his peers, who would sneer and snicker and snap out harsh words that would make them run home crying._

 

_Gods, Shouyou just wanted a single friend, he didn’t care if they were as small and easily nervous like he was._

 

_“I found him!”  Someone shouted and Shouyou tried to push to his feet and run away but he only managed to slam into another body who shoved him back.  Shouyou curled into a ball, trying to protect his head but a clawed hand grabbed his already injured arm, yanking him back and causing him to cry out in pain._

 

**_Please please please, someone help.  Anyone! Please!_ **

 

_Something was building up inside of Shouyou as he was pushed and name called, cursed at and spat on.  Someone kicked him and his fingers curled into the soft earth._

 

_Natsu, his younger sister, and he always came out to the cemetery and played a game they thought was fun.  They would sit on top of a grave, fingers pressed into the dirt and tell the other everything they could about the corpse beneath.  The older they got, the more details they gained. The cause of death was always easy. Names and personalities, when and where they grew up took concentration._

 

_Shouyou’s fingers pressed into the dirt, his blood mixing in it with.  It shifted beneath him and suddenly fingers were curling around his and his classmates were stumbling back, shouting in alarm as the ground fell beneath them._

 

_An arm broke from the ground, pulling itself up until a head was eye level with Shouyou’s.  Blank, glassy eyes stared into Shouyou’s before slowly regaining their color. The body of a teen probably around Shouyou’s own age pulled itself free of the ground, stumbling to his knees and let out a groaning moan that tore through the night, answered moans coming from around them as more hands popped from the dirt like demented daisies._

 

_“He summoned zombies!”  One of his classmates shouted, horrified._

 

_“He’s going to kill us all!”  Another yelled. They pulled at each other, trampling each other to get away.  Some fell into the graves, screaming and screaming as more undead crawled onto the earth._

 

_Shouyou couldn’t move, couldn’t scream or do anything but stare in wide-eyed terror.  He couldn’t have done this. It wasn’t possible! The ritual to raise the undead was extensive.  It required things like a handmade pewter jar, spelled to keep blood ever-fresh and filled to the brim of the necromancers own blood.  It needed a full blood moon, a freshly unburied body that could only be a day old at the most, twelve flight feathers given freely from twelve different crows, and more things than Shouyou knew about._

 

_The zombie who still had a hold of Shouyou’s hand let other another long groan but this one sounded like something more.  They did it again and it almost sounded like a word._

 

_“Dumbass.”  The zombie said slowly, stiff jaw working hard at the word.  Shouyou eyes went wide and he promptly passed out._

  
  
  


“He called you what?”  Kenma asked in surprise, now back to his more human seeming form as he sat beside Shouyou.  Shouyou’s legs were crossed on the bench, facing Kenma as he let out an angry sound to the heavens.

 

“Dumbass!”  Shouyou shouted before quickly looking around as if someone was going to scold him.  He then sighed and rolled the tension out of his shoulders. “That’s Kageyama, he was the first one I technically awoke, that’s what I call it because it’s not really what other necromancers do?  But I woke up and they were all around me, looking a lot more dead than they do now mind you. Sawamura’s head wasn’t even on.” Shouyou looked nauseous at that thought.

 

“And now they work here?”  Kenma asked in confusion. He thought of asking the names of the classmates who had tortured Shouyou so badly that latent and primal powers had gathered inside him, releasing into the ground to pull up dead creatures to protect him.  Kenma had never killed anyone before, but he knew many others who weren’t so opposed to the idea.

 

“Not at first.”  Shouyou rubbed his bright hair.  “There was a lot of screaming, from me mostly.  But Suga got me to calm down enough to explain what happened.  I tried to put them back, I did but since I didn’t know how I awoke them in the first place, I certainly had no idea how to un-awoke them.  So I snuck them into the hotel but Natsu soon found out. She was still little at the time and she promised not to say anything but when our mom asked where she had been all day she said she had been playing with the zombies in the dungeon.”

 

“Your parents probably handled that well.”  Kenma smiled at that thought.

 

“Mom cried and dad considered burning the whole place down and moving to Alaska.”  Shouyou admitted with a rueful smile. “But they weren’t like other zombies, they can talk and move about by themselves.  They don’t crave human flesh, or flesh of any kind. They remember who they were when they were alive too. When my parents calmed down they helped but them all back together, we had to get some spare parts for a few of them but they look pretty good now, right?”

 

“I didn’t know what they were until I was close and then I could smell it.”  Kenma admitted. “Your parents couldn’t put them back?”

 

“Other necromancers can’t undo another’s work.”  Shouyou looked down at his hands. “Mom said the only way to get rid of a zombie is to destroy it completely but after knowing them none of us could do that.”  Kenma knew what it was like to get attached to those around you, he had formed the same attachments with his clan.

 

“I’m sorry that you were treated so badly.”  Kenma said but Shouyou grinned in response.

 

“I’m not.”  Shouyou shrugged at Kenma’s disbelieve.  “If they hadn’t done what they did to me then I wouldn’t have my friends, my extended family.  Anyways after they got done wetting themselves in terror they never bothered me again plus Sawamura went and had a talk with them and he’s terrifying when he wants to be.”  Kenma thought of the man who had brought the poisoned milk to a yokai talked about in hushed, fear filled whispers.

 

“And they are okay with all of this?”  Kenma motioned to the hotel behind them.  Most creatures did not appreciate being bonded into a life of servitude.

 

“Yeah!  They aren’t slaves Kenma.”  Shouyou said with clear disgust.  “They pick what they want to do, they get paid for it too.  The ones who have died recently can’t travel around here but they can go outside of Japan if they wanted to.  Dad said none of them mind being brought back because they all died really young. Sawamura’s the oldest but he was killed before he was even 35.”  Kenma’s memory flashed to the stitched line across Sawamura’s throat.

 

“That’s-” Kenma looked over at Shouyou, who looked anxious as he fidgeted in his seat.  “Amazing, Shouyou. Not that they all died young but the fact that you raised them and even managed to keep their personalities and memories intact.”  Kenma was over three hundred years old and he had never heard of such a thing. Shouyou beamed at Kenma.

 

“I’m so glad you came.”  Shouyou admitted honestly, without a hint of deception.  Kenma smiled back and ducked his head.

 

“Me too.”  Kenma agreed easily.  He mostly didn’t like noisy and crowded places filled with easily excitable people but he thought it might be interesting, staying here at the hotel with the likes of Shouyou and his crew of zombies.

**Author's Note:**

> I was going to write a zombie apocalypse story for this prompt but I've been writing a bit too much angst lately and needed something a little lighter. (some darker themes still made it into this story anyways!)


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